Tailgunner: In The Midnight Hour
The website Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives is a pantheon for information on virtually every band to have called themselves metal since the genre was born, but like Wikipedia, it’s not always accurate. “We formed in 2022, not 2018,” TAILGUNNER bassist Thomas Hewson, better known as Bones, corrects us with an air of exasperation. “You’re not the first person to make that mistake and I’ve never been able to work out where it comes from.”
“It comes from Metal Archives,” Distorted Sound replies. “Well fuck Metal Archives, then!” comes his response. That particular mystery solved, attention turns to the incredible rise TAILGUNNER have had since Hewson formed the band four years ago. Off the back of excellent debut album Guns For Hire, they’ve played with names like KK’s PRIEST, W.A.S.P and STEEL PANTHER, have just wrapped up a tour with HAMMERFALL and are due to hit the UK not just with FOZZY across February but also ACCEPT in the summer. It’s no wonder some are saying they’re the future of British heavy metal, but they’re staying as grounded as possible.
“We don’t have time for egos in the band, we really don’t work like that!” Explains guitarist Rhea Thompson, something Bones agreed with. “The press and the fans really only see the end result when you’re in this, not the excruciating amount of work it takes for us to actually do what we do,” he muses. “If people want to say we’re the future, then we’re not declining the compliment, but we know how hard we work to do this.”
The hard work has paid off handsomely thus far, and it’s going to get even more exciting for TAILGUNNER when sophomore album Midnight Blitz is out, a record that builds on Guns For Hire in every aspect: ten huge slabs of classic metal that will have you headbanging on every listen, throwing your horns in the air and fishing your denim jackets out of the cupboard. It’s extremely strong musically, but it’s bolstered further by the production abilities of none other than K.K. Downing, the legendary guitarist who has championed TAILGUNNER for a good couple of years.
“He’s really down to earth,” Rhea explains. “It was weird – I’d have a day where I would be chatting shit with him in the studio and then I’d go and watch a PRIEST concert, and it didn’t seem like the same person! As a producer, he’s very specific in a good way; he was always questioning if we could do things better or if things could be added in, no detail was too small with him and that’s what we needed.”
“We brought him in to do that,” confirms Bones. “We told him that we wanted him to push us, we weren’t going to argue with his expertise or credibility, but then it’s very difficult to argue details with a man who has been behind so many classic albums!” As it transpires, Downing didn’t even need to say anything to critique the band’s works in progress. “It was more about facial expressions than words,” laughs Bones. “He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just give you a look and that would be enough!”
For Bones, who wrote virtually all of Guns For Hire, writing Midnight Blitz was a welcome change. “I was always very happy to just play,” he reveals, “I’d really wanted to fill the Cliff Williams (AC/DC bassist) role of just standing at the back and doing a real good job! But I was forced to write songs because I wanted to put this band together and have something to show for it, so Guns For Hire was an exercise in teaching myself how to be a songwriter. But this felt like a debut again because we had a full lineup with over 100 shows of experience and it was a much more collaborative effort. I’m really grateful for that and proud of everyone for stepping up their songwriting contributions.”
For all the outside expectations, however, Bones is adamant that the only pressures on the band came from within. “We are brutally savage with each other about the standards of what we do,” he confesses, “but all you can ultimately do is create for yourself, and if you’re truly, artistically satisfied and you truly enjoy what you do, other people will too.”
For a band as young as TAILGUNNER, they already have an extremely mature outlook. You wouldn’t think it had been less than half a decade since their first ever show at The Salutation Inn in Nottingham, such is the way they carry themselves. But as Bones and Rhea set off around the country with FOZZY, one thing is abundantly clear – they have a clear vision for TAILGUNNER, and it’s to rock the hell out of everyone and everything they come across.
Midnight Blitz is set for release on February 6th via Napalm Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS127 here:
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